We can't find the next opportunity, have little economy of scale, so I'm forced to keep our reserves high.

For me, I am a little hesitant because I would be in a situation where I would be trying to secure traditional lending (which should be very feasible given credit scores & what $$ amount I am pre-approved up to from my banks), meaning that I assume I would be forced into using my first-time homebuyer loan incentives.

If you are very conservative purchase a fixer upper so you can force equity and hopefully have a low enough payment so that you can LTR the property or even sell for profit should the STR avenue not work. 

@Joshua Lanzieri when renovating older properties there are almost always negative surprises.Go watch any HGTV renovation show and most of them will have this as a cliff-hanger, forcing the choice of either going over budget or cutting back elsewhere.10% overruns happen often, but 50% is NOT acceptable!

Be patient and don't force deals. 

For C/C- neighborhoods you usually need to scale to 10+ doors; it's a numbers game. 

It’s still a worthy strategy to force cash flow that’s rare to find in SoCal, especially if you can reduce the cost of construction by doing a conversion/using an ADU grant or even buying a property with an existing ADU In general, even if the ADU valuation matches your cost including grants, they are usually not worth it in southern CA in single family zones. 

Their clear incentive is to bet on falling interest rates between now and debt maturity.A small handful of owners are forced to sell due to a looming balloon payment that a refi won't cover, but you're not going to find one of those by driving the market when any commercial broker can just look up properties on that basis and start making calls. 

The NAR settlement was ridiculous and has only forced agents to do more paperwork and disclosures, but the vast majority of us are still working the same way.The law requires the agent to sign an agreement with you.

There is low inventory, lower sales volume, and high interest rates, and as a result many people are sitting on the sidelines, either intentionally or forced.